Enhancing YouTube Long-form Content Experience
Team: Chi Que Pham, Liberty Nguyen, Sonakshi Sisodiya, Evan Velez

I. INTRODUCTION

How can we design YouTube to provide transparency, restore user agency, and reduce misinformation
so users can make better informed choices about the content they consume?

Final product: Two new action bar items for YouTube’s long-form video interface

II. DESIGN PROCESS
Protoype 1: Algorithmic Transparency
When sharing the paper prototype for this feature, we received a suggestion to reduce the number of steps to reach to “About this recommendation”.

So, we decided to test two user flows: 2-screen vs. 3-screen. The consensus turns out to be in favor of the 3-step design. Users noted that 3 screens didn’t overload their cognitive capacity and gave them more freedom over whether to dive into algorithmic information while watching or not.

2-screen flow

3-screen flow

Protoype 2: Video Annotation
Community-driven annotations provide credibility and reflect the changing nature of information. This feature gives users tools to verify claims and participate in a more formal fact-checking process without leaving YouTube.

Option 1

Option 2

Final Wireframe

Protoype 3: Content Breakdown (unsuccessful)
The general feedback was that this is a niche function that communicates transparency without being too upfront or too buried away. However, through testing, it is revealed that data presentation needs a lot more work. There are also concerns of this function being redundant, especially on non-political videos or ones expressing personal opinions, so one tester suggested utilizing keywords/tags and a more neutral viewership breakdown. Thus, this prototype did not make it to wireframing stage.